A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier

It is 1932, England and all of Europe is still under the cloud of World War I. So many men died in the war that there are thousands upon thousands of young widows or unmarried ‘spinsters’ who are dubbed ‘surplus woman', woman who will be unlikely to marry or have children. Violet Speedwell is one such woman; at thirty-eight, she has lost both her older brother and her finance, Laurence. Violet’s mother is inconsolable over the death of her oldest son, and is super-critical of her daughter, so much so that she makes Violet’s life miserable, and Violet longs to get away from her home and town where she feels suffocated by the life of caring for her aging mother.

When Violet spots an ad for a typist in a nearby town, she applies, and immediately accepts the low-paying job when it is offered. 

When it became clear that Mrs. Speedwell was not going to see her off as she normally did, watching from the doorway until visitors were out of sight, Violet went over and kissed her on the forehead. “Good-bye, Mother” she murmured. “I’ll see you next Sunday.”

Mrs. Speedwell sniffed,. “Don’t bother. I may be dead by then.”

And thus Violet begins her new life, living in a boardinghouse with other young women and working long hours typing forms for an insurance company. Excited by the new freedom, she puts up with meals of sardines on toast or beans on toast. 

She took herself to the cinema every week—her one indulgence, which she paid for by going without a meal that day. 

Her life is dreary and lonely until one day she goes to the grand cathedral in Winchester and happens onto a particular service, one filled with mostly older  women. She is not at the church to pray, ”prayers had died in the war alongside George and Laurence and a nation full of young men.”

It turns out to be a special mass for broderers, i.e. women who embroider seat cushions and kneelers  for the hard wooden benches of the cathedral. At first blocked from entering the group, she persists and eventually is allowed to be a part of the group. An so begins a new and much less socially impoverished  life as she befriends other broderers and comes under the very kind tutelage of Miss  Pesel, one of two women in charge of the group of women.

When I picked up this novel, I knew nothing of spinning, weaving, crocheting , or embroidering, but I was fascinated by the descriptions and by the friendships between the women. Although Violet has had very limited introduction to needlework, she quickly takes to it under the watchful eye of Miss Pesel. She also becomes friends with an older man, Arthur, who is a bell-ringer for the cathedral. Arthur is married to a woman who is frail and ailing, unable to recover from the loss of her son in the war.

In order to be allowed to attend the daytime broderers meetings, Violet comes up with a plan to improve efficiency in the insurance office  such that it will allow both she and Olive,